One Friend
by shannon5
Summary: Set immediately after 2 to Go/Grave. Xander's thinking about his friend.


I always thought you were the best  
  
I guess I always will  
  
I always felt that we'd been blessed  
  
I feel that way still  
  
Xander sat holding Willow, thinking about that day in kindergarten. He knew Willow thought he was kidding about loving her then, but he wasn't. He knew he loved her, at five years old, the minute he saw her crying over that crayon.  
  
Not loved her, loved her. But he knew this person would be a part of his live forever. And now he couldn't imagine it not being true. Willow was and always would be his best friend. Sure the Willow of the last few days was really scary, but it was still Willow. That's why he had gone after her when he found out what she was doing. He knew this scary Willow could kill him, but he also knew that the old Willow was still there. He knew he had to try, had to make her remember that he loved her, and would no matter what.  
  
His love for her would never change. That couldn't be said about many things but it was true about this.  
  
Sometimes we took the hard road  
  
But we always saw it through  
  
If I had only one friend left  
  
I'd want it to be you  
  
From that day in kindergarten they had been inseperable. It hadn't been easy. All through elementary school they had been teased about their friendship. How could they have a best friend of the opposite sex. He was supposed to hate girls, and she was supposed to hate boys. Mostly they did, but somehow they didn't see the other that way. They had dealt with the teasing by becoming closer to each other.  
  
The junior high came. The teasing stopped. At least temporarily, because you no longer had to hate the opposite sex. Puberty had happened. The opposite sex had become more interesting. Then, of course, everyone had realized they weren't dating, they were still friends and the teasing started again.  
  
By the time high school happened no one cared anymore. They had simply be relegated to being geeks. So what they did didn't matter anymore. That should have bothered them, being geeks, but it didn't. Because now they were free to be friends.  
  
Through all of that his love for the red headed girl crying in his arms right now hadn't changed at all.  
  
Sometimes the world was on our side  
  
Sometimes it didn't care  
  
Sometimes it gave a helping hand  
  
Sometimes we didn't care  
  
Then Buffy came. Things started to get even better for them. They were still geeks, but now they were geeks with a purpose. Sure they couldn't tell anyone about it, but they still had each other to talk too.  
  
Then Cordiela and Oz came. Things started to get complicated again. They were being pulled away from each other. God when he thought about it now. How they had let the fear of being away from each other turn into an attraction that wasn't right for either of them. How that got so out of hand that it almost ended their friendship.  
  
Last summer, without Buffy, he was reminded of how important Willow was to his life. Sometimes, in the past, he had lost sight of the importance of his best friend. But last summer they had fought together. On their own, without Slayer back-up. As scary as it had been at times he loved getting back to just the two of them again. He knew that together they could fight evil, they would survive. As long as he had Willow in his life he would be fine. That was something that hadn't changed in all the years since kindergarten.  
  
Cause we were together  
  
We made our dreams  
  
Come true  
  
If I had only one friend left  
  
I'd want it to be you  
  
He remembered when they were kids camping out in Willow's backyard, because he didn't want to stay home and listen to his parents fight. They would look at the stars and talk about what they were going to do when they grew up. Willow wanted to be a teacher. Or a computer programmer or both. She was an ambitious little girl. Xander had wanted to be a fireman for a while, then he wanted to be a doctor or a business man.  
  
He had always known Willow would do what she wanted to do. She was smart enough to do anything. He had also always known he wouldn't do anything exciting, or that would make him rich. He wasn't smart enough for scholarships and not rich enough to pay for college.  
  
Someone who understands me  
  
Knows me inside out  
  
Helps keep me together  
  
And believes without a doubt  
  
Willow always seemed to know what he was thinking. When they had finally talked after the wedding, when he had finally come back. She hadn't been all that surprised at what he did. She had said she knew he wasn't ready. That what she was saying wasn't about her not liking Anya, but about him. She knew he loved Anya, she also knew what his life had been like when he was a kid, and that he shouldn't get married until he had worked through all of that.  
  
Willow had been the only one that knew about his fears of marriage. His fear that he wasn't successful enough for Anya. That they would end up like his parents. She had just held him and reassured him that he would never be like his dad. When he said he had to stop the wedding she had accepted it. She didn't question his judgement, she just believed that he was doing the right thing.  
  
If I could move a mountain  
  
Someone to tell it to  
  
If I had only one friend left  
  
I'd want it to be you  
  
They would get through this together too. Like everything else in their lives. This time it was Willow who needed the support and he would be their for her, just like she's always been their when he needed support.  
  
Willow. The one person he could always talk too. The one person who would always be there. The one person he couldn't live without. His friend. 


End file.
